‘Trust permits risk, which permits change, which permits growth.’ You know when you have trust; you know when you don’t have trust. Trust is built and maintained by many small actions over time. In the business environment, trust is also warned, over time, through day-to-day actions making the right choices even in difficult situations. There is a human need to trust and respect the leaders into whose hands we deliver ourselves. Trust forms the foundation for effective communication, employee retention, and employee motivation and contribution of discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work. When trust exists in a company or in a relationship, almost everything else is easier and more comfortable to achieve. A manager will not get top performance out of any employee who does not trust him. Without the employees' trust managers will not get that spark of creativity from them that is so important. Employees will not innovate that one little idea that could have kept a company ahead of its competitor. Yet, even in a company in which trust is a priority, things happen daily that can injure trust. Trust is the crucial ingredient of organisational effectiveness. Building it, maintaining it, and restoring it when it is damaged must be at the top of every manager’s agenda. Trust is not a matter of technique, but of character; managers are trusted because of their way of being, not because of their polished exteriors or their expertly crafted communications. Gaining employees trust is about telling the truth, even when it is difficult, and being truthful, authentic. Of course, there are no fixed rules of how to gain trust from your employees. But there are some easy but important guidelines that help managers creating a business environment where trust has the chance to build and maintain.
